Free Republic

From Michigan to Louisiana to California on Friday, rank-and-file Republicans expressed mystification, dismissal and contempt regarding the instructions that their party’s most high-profile leaders were urgently handing down to them: Reject and defeat Donald J. Trump. Their angry reactions, in the 24 hours since Mitt Romney and John McCain urged millions of voters to cooperate in a grand strategy to undermine Mr. Trump’s candidacy, have captured the seemingly inexorable force of a movement that still puzzles the Republican elite and now threatens to unravel the party they hold dear. In interviews, even lifelong Republicans who cast a ballot for Mr....

From Michigan to Louisiana to California on Friday, rank-and-file Republicans expressed mystification, dismissal and contempt over the instructions that their party’s most high-profile leaders were urgently handing down to them: Reject and defeat Donald J. Trump. Their angry reactions, in the 24 hours since Mitt Romney and John McCain urged millions of voters to cooperate in a grand strategy to undermine Mr. Trump’s candidacy, have captured the seemingly inexorable force of a movement that still puzzles the Republican elite and now threatens to unravel the party they hold dear. In interviews, even lifelong Republicans who cast a ballot for Mr....

It would appear Trump fever has broken. It would seem the down, dirty, and ugly attacks by Rubio particularly, but also Romney, Cruz and others have kicked in. I sense that Trump has become a figure of ridicule, and no politician survives that. Plus his latest flip flops, like on torture, have weakened him as a serious person, although that may not have been obvious at the time. I think the teflon has worn off. If true, Chris Christy gets the bad timing of the year award

The New York Times greets people at newsstands today with huge headlines, usual reserved for wars and other historic events. "Romney ... Trump ... Nation in peril." And, yet, before the ink is even dry, the Romney-led #NeverTrump movement is visibly a flop. And the Romney speech is a non-story. A. RNC Chairman Priebus: The rules of the nominating process are “no different today than 100 years ago. Which is you have a process. And whatever candidate gets a majority of the delegates is going to get the support of the party. That’s how it works,” Reince Priebus said on...

Rep. Marcia Fudge (D.-Ohio), the incoming chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is accusing Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) of "sexism and racism" because the criticism leveled at U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice for telling the American people that the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was a spontaneous reaction to a video posted on YouTube. “There is a clear, a clear in my opinion, sexism and racism that goes with these comments that are being made by, unfortunately, Senator McCain and others,” Fudge (D-Ohio.) said Friday at a Capitol Hill press conference.

How panicked should we be about the rise of Donald Trump? A professor at Harvard, Danielle Allen, recently published a widely shared op-ed piece in the Washington Post likening his rise to that of Hitler... ...such Hitler hype has happened before, and been unwarranted. Steven Hayward, author of “The Age of Reagan,” recalls the rhetoric: Democratic Rep. William Clay of Missouri charged that Reagan was “trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from Mein Kampf.”

While Ann Romney wouldn’t necessarily name her favorite candidates running for president, she did praise Donald Trump while talking to Sean Hannity last night.

In any primary, there are a thousand questions to ask, but the first one – yes, the primary one – must be this: What year is it? No, not just “is this a presidential year or a midterm election,” though that’s important too... But what year is it, historically? That is, is it most analogous to a year we’ve seen before, or is it unlike any prior election, so we shouldn’t bother to see if we can learn from parallels? It is often said that there is nothing new under the sun, that we’re always fighting the same war, that...

I'm all for Ralph Nader running again. I'd love for Howard Dean to get fed up or some other Democrat to get fed up with Obama and I'd love for a third party of Democrats and liberals to establish itself. I want all kinds of liberals to line and up run in third parties. That's how we weaken their side. As for our side, the focus must be to take back the Republican Party. That's the way you win. You can draw attention to yourself by denouncing both parties at the same time, and you can think that you're relating...

Republican gridlock rekindles talk of third-party candidate WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON – Talk of a protracted nomination race or a brokered convention may excite political junkies and horse race aficionados, but it masks a grim reality for the U.S. Republican party.Three different winners in three presidential contests now provide evidence for what has been long suspected – the Republican coalition is fractured and there's no one to paste it back together. GOP gridlock is already sparking talk of a search for a saviour and rekindling talk of a third party bid, talk that has been a mainstay of American political chatter...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator John McCain predicted on Tuesday a third political party will emerge in response to Americans' economic frustrations and said it might as well be called "the Fed-Up Party." The Republican Party's presidential nominee in 2008 raised the possibility of a third party about a year ago, but his comments on Tuesday suggest he has hardened his views as polls show Americans increasingly disillusioned with Washington politics. The 75-year-old McCain may now be the most prominent politician forecasting Americans will look to another party to compete with Democrats and Republicans. "Unless both parties change, then I think...

Republican Senator John McCain warned on Monday that U.S. lawmakers should respond to the concerns of the conservative Tea Party movement or else its supporters could give rise to a third political party. In an interview at the Reuters Washington Summit, McCain also said Republicans need a "positive agenda" in campaigning for the November 2 congressional election rather than simply saying no to Democratic policies. McCain, who earned a reputation as a political maverick for bucking his party, has recently swung to the right on some issues to beat back a conservative challenger in his re-election bid in Arizona. He...

PHOENIX -- There's no earthly chasm disrupting tree-lined Central Avenue here as it placidly heads north of Bethany Home Road, past well-off residences. However, there might as well have been an abyss between U.S. Sen. John McCain's former home on Central and the church auditorium not far away where local Republican precinct committeemen convened for their annual assembly. McCain left that neighborhood once his children were grown, and the regular January meeting of Maricopa County GOP precinct ground troops, resounding with denunciations of their own party's dispiriting record, in effect voted overwhelmingly that McCain should leave the Senate, too, although...

The events of yesterday may be a blessing in disguise for those of us who react with absolute horror to the very thought of a Democrat President in 2008. Most likely the Democrat nominee is going to be Hillary, and like her husband before her, the only way she could win the Presidency is if there were a conservative stalking horse like Ross Perot to split the conservative vote. We all know what an egomaniac John McCain is. If he does not get the nomination in 2008, there is no doubt in my mind that he will strike a secret...

The Gibson Guitar saga has taken a sinister turn. It seems that the Department of Justice wasn’t satisfied with merely raiding the law abiding factories of Gibson Guitar with armed agents, shutting down their operation costing them millions, and leaving the American company in the dark as to how to proceed without going out of business. Now, according to CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, agents of the United States government are bluntly informing them that they’d be better off shipping their manufacturing labor overseas.

The conservative anti-tax group Club for Growth said Wednesday that Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has evolved into the kind of vice presidential candidate it could get behind if Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) should tap him. The group argued that Cantor has been “consistently strong in several economic policy areas” and, after a start in the “key area” of government spending that was “less strong,” the Club for Growth now thinks that Cantor “ranks among the most pro-growth members in the House.” “Over the past two years, Rep. Cantor has been one of the few Republicans to come to grips with...

McCain is right on Free Trade.Conservatives rightly have many fears over John McCain. However, it is noteworthy that on certain issues — health care, earmarks, agricultural subsidies, and the subprime situation ("no bailouts!") to name a few — he is notably superior to our current president.The Club for Growth today released this statement on his free trade policy, which is also meritorious:  Washington – The Club for Growth commends Senator John McCain for calling for a new free trade agreement with the European Union. Currently, the United States and the European Union have low tariffs on most manufactured goods traded between...

Duncan Hunter is a man of integrity, and wouldn’t endorse Huckabee if he thought it would lead to McCain winning the nomination. Sometimes the most obvious explanation is the best one. Duncan Hunter endorsed Huckabee because Huckabee is the most conservative candidate left. Including on immigration. And he endorsed Huckabee because he thinks Huckabee still has a chance to win this thing. They spent a lot of time together, and Hunter knows Huckabee’s character. He also knows Huckabee has, like many Republicans, become much more aware of the scope of the illegal immigration problem and the required solutions. Huckabee is...

When I walked into the office Monday, people were clustering around a computer to watch what they thought they would never see: Hillary Clinton with the unmistakable look of tears in her eyes. A woman gazing at the screen was grimacing, saying it was bad. Three guys watched it over and over, drawn to the “humanized” Hillary. One reporter who covers security issues cringed. “We are at war,” he said. “Is this how she’ll talk to Kim Jong-il?” Another reporter joked: “That crying really seemed genuine. I’ll bet she spent hours thinking about it beforehand.” He added dryly: “Crying doesn’t...

In 2005, a year after Ellie Grossman, a doctor, met Ray Fisman, a professor, on a blind date, she was talking to her grandmother about her guy. “Never let a man think you’re smarter,” her grandmother advised. “Men don’t like that.” Ray and Ellie “had a good laugh, thinking times had changed,” he recalled. The pair went on to marry — after she proposed. But now, he says, “it seems like the students at Columbia University should pay heed to Grandma Lil’s advice.” Mr. Fisman is a 36-year-old Columbia economics professor who conducted a two-year study, published last year, on...